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At the core of the Junior Researcher program is the Changing Beaches Research Challenge that provides middle and high school (grades 8 – 12) students an opportunity to engage deeply with scientist Dr. Mara Orescanin of the Naval Postgraduate School and contribute in a meaningful way to her research program.
January 2019 Update:
January 2019 Update:
Dr. Orescanin has reported that the Carmel River had an assisted breach with the help of a bulldozer last week. The river is flowing to the sea and will likely stay open with rain in the forecast. See a video of the breach below.
Our project is described in this video of the Carmel River estuary system.
This Research Challenge was selected from over 10 submitted to us by scientists and engineers at preeminent institutions across the US in fields ranging from physics to molecular biology to chemical engineering. The selected challenge strongly displayed characteristics that we believe will be predictive of success:
- Students can collect data (and perform other research tasks) that will have a meaningful impact on the project
- Research leads are strongly committed to engage with K-12 students and see the value of their participation
- Local schools and education institutions are supportive
Changing Beaches Research Challenge will be led by Dr. Mara Orescanin, Assistant Professor, Naval Postgraduate School.
This challenge aims to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) method to detect coastal change
using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and a neural network (deep learning) method for image classification.
To test these methods, and to train the neural net, Junior Researcher students in grades 8 - 12 will contribute data on water quality, sediment, vegetation, and river location at the Carmel River State Beach, that is known to breach seasonally (winter months), drastically changing the morphology and water quality.
Challenge Motivation
Challenge Motivation
With the imminent threat of rising sea levels, more frequent storms, and increased population close to the coast, understanding and monitoring coastal change is critical. Change at coastal environments and their surrounding waters is notoriously difficult to predict during extreme events owing to the inherent dependence on prediction uncertainty of the extreme event (location, intensity). Specifically, extreme events on littoral systems have the possibility of creating unexpected cuts across the barrier beach system, called beach breaching. Breaching immediately alters the circulation of water, as well as parameters contained within the water such as sediment, salt, oil, and other pollutants. In addition, breaching can affect coastal infrastructure near the breach site.
Carmel River State Beach, Left: December 26, 2016 prior to full beach breach.
January 24, 2017 post flood event that breached the barrier beach until July 2017.
Changing Beaches Challenge will contribute to an active research project that seeks to develop generally applicable AI methods that can detect coastal change based on imagery obtained by UAVs. The focus of initial studies will be on the Carmel River State Beach to develop and test these methods and train a neural net to quantify changes during the breach process. Prior to the breach (expected in the Fall / Winter), GPS surveys of the beach topography and lagoon bathymetry will be collected, in conjunction with aerial surveys. The river will be frequently monitored to catch the breach event and catalog morphological changes. Each survey will generate a digital elevation model (DEM) – a 3D representation of the area – one before and one after breach, that will used to quantify these changes.
Junior Researchers Role
Junior Researchers Role
Junior Researcher students will play a critical role in this project by validating (ground truthing) and enriching the remote imagery obtained through frequent on-site monitoring of the Carmel River State Beach and lagoon areas, as well as analysis of water samples. Students will also assist in tagging data elements, such as vegetation type and sediment levels in land and aerial images.
Types of Measurements
- Water Samples: Geolocated surface-water samples will be collected and analyzed for salinity and sediment concentrations.
- Vegetation: Geolocated pictures of fresh and brackish water, vegetation will be taken and augmented by basic information on growth conditions of plants.
- River Location: Geolocated photographs will be collected to help define the migration of the Carmel River, particularly after the breach event.
These will be used to establish a gridded classification of the DEMs generated, and serve as input to establish models for change detection between the two states.
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